THE NIGHT OF HOGGY DARN
BY R. M. McKENNA
The talented author of "The Fishdollar Affair"
returns with another compelling story of a frontier
world—grim New Cornwall of the Black Learning.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, December 1958.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Red-haired Flinter Cole sipped his black coffee and looked around the chrome and white tile galley of Space Freighter Gorbals, in which he was riding down the last joint of a dogleg journey to the hermit planet of New Cornwall.
"Nothing's been published about the planet for the last five hundred years," he said in a nervous, jerky voice. "You people on Gorbals at least see the place, and I understand you're the only ship that does."
"That's right, twice every standard year," said the cook. He was a placid, squinting man, pink in his crisp whites. "But like I said, no girls, no drinks, nothing down there but hard looks and a punch in the nose for being curious. We mostly stay aboard, up in orbit. Them New Cornish are the biggest, meanest men I ever did see, Doc."
"I'm not a real doctor yet," Cole said, glancing down at the scholar grays he was wearing. "If I don't do a good job on New Cornwall I may never be. This is my Ph. D. trial field assignment. I should be stuffing myself with data on the ecosystem so I can ask the right questions when I get there. But there's nothing!"